The Soyuz TMA-11 capsule, carrying incoming space station commander Peggy Whitson, Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko and Malaysia's first astronaut, docked with the international space station Friday to close out a two-day orbital chase.

With Malenchenko overseeing the spacecraft's approach, the TMA-11 capsule's nose engaged the docking system of the Russian Zarya module's Earth-facing port at 10:50 a.m. EDT.

"Yuri, congratulations," someone radioed in Russian.

"Thank you," Malenchenko replied.

"It was a flawless, textbook rendezvous," said NASA spokesman Rob Navias from the Russian mission control center near Moscow.

Whitson, the first female named to command the space station, and Malenchenko will replace Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov, who were launched last April. Malaysian Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, flying with Whitson and Malenchenko as a guest of the Russian government, will return to Earth Oct. 21 with Yurchikhin and Kotov aboard the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft.

Astronaut Clay Anderson, who was ferried to the station last June aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, will remain aboard the lab complex with Whitson and Malenchenko until his replacement, astronaut Dan Tani, arrives aboard the shuttle Discovery at the end of the month.

Whitson's crew will oversee a particularly critical period in the space station's assembly.

Discovery will deliver a new multi-hatch module called Harmony that will permit the attachment of European and Japanese research modules in December and early next year. Harmony will be temporarily mounted on the left side of a similar module called node 1, or Unity.

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